EXCLUSIVE: Goodfellas has revealed a first look at Japanese actor and model Kentaro Sakaguchi as the star of Ryota Nakano‘s upcoming drama I Don’t Know You, as it gears up to launch sales on the film at the European Film Market this month.
Sakaguchi is one of Japan’s buzziest actors of the moment with recent credits including Netflix Original Series Beyond Goodbye and Korean star-cross romance What Comes After Love.
Billed as a drama questioning the limits of paternal love, forgiveness and redemption, I Don’t Know You revolves around a teenager called Asako and her relationship with Yuhei, a man who became a father figure to her for six months when she was five years old after he started dating her mother.
Thirteen years later, she discovers he is serving a prison sentence, having been convicted of her mother’s murder.
Sakaguchi plays Yuhei, a vulnerable man who lived alone since his late teens and seemed to have found the family he yearned for in Asako and her mother before committing the unforgivable.
Japanese director Nakano last made waves with his well-received comedy-drama The Asadas inspired by a real-life photographer, whose focus on shooting his own family, took on fresh meaning when he became involved in the clear-up of Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The film grossed more than $10 million at home in 2020, and also generated more than 250 000 admissions in France.
Nakano has explored family bonds throughout his career with films such as Berlinale-selected Capturing Dad (2012), about two sisters who reconnect with their estranged father on his deathbed; Her Love Boils Bath Water (2016) about a dying mother tying up loose ends to ensure her family can live without her, and The Asadas.
I Don’t Know You was shot in Tokyo and the neighboring towns of Chiba and Saitama last year and is in post-production. The rest of the cast will be announced in the coming months.
The film is a Japanese French coproduction, with Kazumi Fukase at The Klockworx Co., Ltd. and Yusuke Wakabayashi at Pipeline lead producing, in coproduction with Pyramide Productions, known for Cannes 2022 Jury Prize winner The Eight Mountains.
Klockworx Co., Ltd will also distribute I Don’t Know You in Japan. The company previously handled the release of Nakano’s Her Love Boils Bathwater, while its recent slate includes Kenji Uchida Key of Life, which was later remade across Asia; as well as international titles such as the Academy Award–winning film I’m Still Here and 2026 Oscar contender The Secret Agent.
French rights have been pre-bought by KMBO, the slate of which features Ildiko Enyedi’s Venice Golden Lion contender Silent Friend and Berlinale 2026 competition title Soumsoum by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun.
Hiroshi Iwanaga is on board as cinematographer, while composer Hiroko Sebu (I Want To Eat Your Pancreas) has signed for the score.
“At Klockworx, we are dedicated to working with directors who create bold and original films from Japan. Director Nakano stands as one of the strongest and most distinctive creative voices in Japanese cinema today. With this project, we are proud to present a truly original work born in Japan—one that goes beyond existing IP and speaks powerfully to audiences around the world,” said Klockworx’s Fukase.
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